SOCRATES: And if the proof, although not perfect, be sufficient, we shall
be satisfied;--more precise proof will be supplied when we have discovered
that which we were led to omit, from a fear that the enquiry would be too
much protracted.

SOCRATES: What I meant, when I said that absolute existence must be first
considered; but now, instead of absolute existence, we have been
considering the nature of individual existence, and this may, perhaps, be
sufficient; for surely there is nothing which may be called more properly
ourselves than the soul?

SOCRATES: The husbandmen and the other craftsmen are very far from knowing
themselves, for they would seem not even to know their own belongings?
When regarded in relation to the arts which they practise they are even
further removed from self-knowledge, for they only know the belongings of
the body, which minister to the body.

SOCRATES: The fact is, that there is only one lover of Alcibiades the son
of Cleinias; there neither is nor ever has been seemingly any other; and he
is his darling,--Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus and Phaenarete.

SOCRATES: The reason was that I loved you for your own sake, whereas other
men love what belongs to you; and your beauty, which is not you, is fading
away, just as your true self is beginning to bloom. And I will never
desert you, if you are not spoiled and deformed by the Athenian people; for
the danger which I most fear is that you will become a lover of the people
and will be spoiled by them. Many a noble Athenian has been ruined in this
way. For the demus of the great-hearted Erechteus is of a fair
countenance, but you should see him naked; wherefore observe the caution
which I give you.

SOCRATES: Practise yourself, sweet friend, in learning what you ought to
know, before you enter on politics; and then you will have an antidote
which will keep you out of harm's way.

ALCIBIADES: Good advice, Socrates, but I wish that you would explain to me
in what way I am to take care of myself.

SOCRATES: Have we not made an advance? for we are at any rate tolerably
well agreed as to what we are, and there is no longer any danger, as we
once feared, that we might be taking care not of ourselves, but of
something which is not ourselves.

SOCRATES: But how can we have a perfect knowledge of the things of the
soul?--For if we know them, then I suppose we shall know ourselves. Can we
really be ignorant of the excellent meaning of the Delphian inscription, of
which we were just now speaking?

SOCRATES: Consider; if some one were to say to the eye, 'See thyself,' as
you might say to a man, 'Know thyself,' what is the nature and meaning of
this precept? Would not his meaning be:--That the eye should look at that
in which it would see itself?

SOCRATES: Did you ever observe that the face of the person looking into
the eye of another is reflected as in a mirror; and in the visual organ
which is over against him, and which is called the pupil, there is a sort
of image of the person looking?

SOCRATES: And if the soul, my dear Alcibiades, is ever to know herself,
must she not look at the soul; and especially at that part of the soul in
which her virtue resides, and to any other which is like this?

SOCRATES: Then we were not altogether right in acknowledging just now that
a man may know what belongs to him and yet not know himself; nay, rather he
cannot even know the belongings of his belongings; for the discernment of
the things of self, and of the things which belong to the things of self,
appear all to be the business of the same man, and of the same art.

SOCRATES: For if a man, my dear Alcibiades, has the power to do what he
likes, but has no understanding, what is likely to be the result, either to
him as an individual or to the state--for example, if he be sick and is
able to do what he likes, not having the mind of a physician--having
moreover tyrannical power, and no one daring to reprove him, what will
happen to him? Will he not be likely to have his constitution ruined?

ALCIBIADES: I agree; and I further say, that our relations are likely to
be reversed. From this day forward, I must and will follow you as you have
followed me; I will be the disciple, and you shall be my master.

SOCRATES: O that is rare! My love breeds another love: and so like the
stork I shall be cherished by the bird whom I have hatched.

ALCIBIADES: Strange, but true; and henceforward I shall begin to think
about justice.

SOCRATES: And I hope that you will persist; although I have fears, not
because I doubt you; but I see the power of the state, which may be too
much for both of us.